Sometimes Ophelia wished she'd picked an easier life for herself, a nice little cottage lost in the woods where books and tea would keep her company. But that would be no fun, would it? What could possibly beat cruising towards the hostile alien habitat inside stuffy vehicles? At least, she considered, Brabbit had taken another transportation instead of joining the TARDIS crew.
"So, why is the pyramid active now?" Bill asked the man most likely to know an answer.
"Possibly they know they're about to be bombed." His eyes still hidden behind sonic glasses couldn't see what unfolded next.
A B52 airplane that had been sent out on the president's orders had its journey abruptly interrupted by beaming orange light. Instead of being capable of turning back to base, it hovered in horizontal suspension. Back where they'd started earlier, the party of seven watched as their attack plan got lowered into shrubby vegetation.
"It's the Monks." Nardole's description of what happened seemed to aid his own belief rather than the blind man. "They've hijacked the plane. How did they do that?"
Both girls breathed in dry air slowly, trying very hard to fight back fear, while way ahead of them the three monks did a smart left-turn and walked back inside their lair. Thankfully all three aircrew members came out of the structure unharmed.
"Oh, they're fine." Nardole kept on talking. "The crew are alive."
"Who are those people?" Ophelia asked their military friends given three more throughly disoriented guys came out in striped shirts and dark pants.
"I think they're ours." Ilya, the Russian leader, offered.
"Yours?" Bill turned right to look at him.
"We targeted the pyramid with a missile." Eight people watched aghast as, with a with rushing winds, the beam delivered what looked like long cylinder with a propeller at the end, which stuck up out of the ground in an way that it was never designed for. "From a submarine."
"So demonstrating strength isn't going to help." The Doctor always knew how to make his words sound ominous, though it wasn't intentional most of the time.
If watching a plane be high jacked wasn't enough to rattled their hearts, having a submarine missile planted as if it were a tree should have done the trick. Should both things fail, they definitely got scared out of their pants by what happened next.
Whoever happened to be in the general vicinity heard that sibilant voice call.
"We are ready to talk."
༓☾☽༓
There was a special type of sadism in forcing people to dig their own grave and walking towards that opening in the pyramid felt like doing so. Each step felt like they should be running away, figuring out some other manner of dealing with this instead of negotiating with a rather ugly race of aliens but Xiaolian led the way. Their clearly divided group, four powerful humans and four time travelers, plus some soldiers let the president take the lead but no monks were waiting for them.
"I mean, this is a trap, right?" Bill asked once everyone but her, Lia and the Doctor had moved on.
"Possibly." He briefly placed his right hand on the wall. "Probably."
"And we're just walking into it." She hurriedly followed both friends while holding her phone's lantern up.
"Well, every trap you walk into is a chance to learn about your enemies." Ophelia opted for staying quiet while pocketing an unnecessary pair of glasses, the time lord's voice echoing. "Impossible to set a trap without making a self-portrait of your own weaknesses."
"Great." Bill retorted. "Unless it kills us."
"Well, you could say that about anything."
For such a technologically advanced race, these guys had no notion of architecture. Their ship's exterior was a shameless rip off from ancient Egypt and its inside had no lighting at all, which made Bill's phone (Ophelia's had died somewhere around noon) the trio's only source of lightning. That was until they reached the rest of their entourage, where two soldiers held powerful lanterns. Those were great to shine light on a Monk's horrible complexion, making Ophelia hide behind her alien friend.
"The human race is about to end. The chain of events is already in motion. Life on Earth will cease by humanity's own hand. Observe."
Watching from close quarters, she could see that it didn't actually speak. Instead of moving what could pass as a rather dried up mouth, it's voice echoed inside their heads. That left her feeling violated which got worse as the wall behind it slid open, revealing several more of those horrid creatures. They stood around a two meters wide circle made of vertical fibreoptic cables, stretched from floor to ceiling, bony hands threading through them as one would when untangling messy wires.
"Ah." The Doctor slowly went in a lap, getting sonic readings to comprehend what was going on. "The simulation machine looks a bit different from the outside."
"We are modelling the future. Each thread is a chain of days, leading to your end." Slithering words entered their minds, one of the time travelers putting back sunglasses if only to not see theses things properly. "We can detect when a catastrophe is about to occur."
"And?" The time lord urged.
"Stop it from occurring." Came a somewhat funny answer.
In spite of their namesake, these monks didn't look very benevolent.
"You don't look much like guardian angels." Brabbit cut in, not enjoying being sidelined.
"We have chosen this form to look like you." The monk's reply didn't please him either.
"You look like corpses." He failed to see similarities between walking mummies and humans.
"You are corpses to us." Their alien guide faced towards them. "Your world is ending. You can do nothing, but we can save you."
"Save us, then." The Doctor threw a bait.
"To save you we must be asked." That sentence raised one big red flag for him, his assistant seemed to catch on judging by a raised eyebrow.
"Then what?" He feigned ignorance.
"We will protect you." Its condescension sounded even worse streamed directly into their brains.
"How long for?" Ophelia's glasses got taken off again, just to notice his eyebrows furrowed behind his own.
"Forever."
"Do you understand now? Do you see?" His head turned both ways, mentally pleading these humans heard him, before continuing laps around the room. "Asking them for help has conditions. Invite them in, and it will be the last free action you take."
"If you do not ask for help, then see the days to come. These are the threads that lead to one year in your future." Eight monks pulled out threads, reaching them out in invitation. "Take them as proof."
Having no other option left, Ophelia grabbed one and got sucked into flashing images. Acres of forest reduced to ashes, a city turned to ruins while another had been submerged by floodwaters, overturned cars, streets piled high with debris, hurricanes, fires, armies faced each other down. This was so far from what she'd been taught during training, nothing like the twins had learned in school. All of them let go at once, gasping for breath. She gave into a selfish though for moments, what would happen to her should this come to pass?
"What was that?" Xiaolian wiped her eyes, like those images could be erased.
"Planet Earth with not a single living thing." The Doctor still held onto the thread he'd been given. "Dead as the moon."
"You seem pretty damn calm about it." Brabbit began to loose his cool.
"Do I? Oh, I'm sorry." He finally let go of that thread, feigning an apologetic expression. "It's not my first dead planet."
"Ask for help." The monk reinstated. "It will be given."
"Why do you need to be asked?" He'd grown tired of beating around the bush.
"Power must consent."
"Power must consent." The Doctor finally snapped. "What does that mean?"
"Those who hold power on this world must consent to our dominion."
"Why?"
Both aliens stood on an elevated platform as ringing signaled another change to doomsday clock.
"One minute to midnight." Nardole stated.
"You could take this planet in a heartbeat." His sonic glasses showed a definite spike in Ophelia's vitals, he'd worry about that later. "Why do you need consent?"
"We must be wanted. We must be loved." That invading way of talking got old real fast. "To rule through fear is inefficient."
"Of course." He faced down. "Fear is temporary. Love is slavery."
"If consent is what you need, I consent now." Secretary Yang stepped forward.
"No. No, don't do this." The Doctor reached a cautious hand out. "Please, don't even consider this!"
"What I saw was real. I felt it." He softly told the president, turning to stand at arms reach of the monk. "If you can help us, I consent."
A spotlight held Yang in place.
"Do you have power?" No one dared even breath.
" I have power." He affirmed.
"Does power consent?" Ophelia took as step back when that monster walked forward.
She'd not intended to show fear but Bill noticed, they were best friends after all. Even if nightmares were being kept a secret, circles under her eyes well disguised with make up, know that these things scared her best friend switched Bill Potts into protective mode.
"If your consent is impure, it will kill you." It warned, the Doctor's pleas to stop being ignored.
Impure? What did that mean?
"You act out of fear." Its hand hovered over Yang's chest. "Fear is not consent."
With a mere tap, Secretary General Yang of the United Nations was no more. His body froze for no more than a second, dividing into dust which fell apart like sandcastles on a windy day. Nardole gasped along with both girls, all three huddling even closer.
"Planet Earth does not consent to your help, your presence, or your conquest." The Doctor climbed back into that elevated platform around the circle of threads. "Thank you for playing the big pyramid game. Bye, bye." His arms stretched out. "See you again next week, hopefully not."
"Without our help, Planet Earth is doomed."
Once again both aliens faced off.
"Yes? Well, it's been doomed before. Guess what happened? Me!"
He used his thumb to point at himself before reaching for Ophelia's hand, leading their group of seven out.
༓☾☽༓
"Why do they need consent?" Ophelia asked out loud.
They'd gone back to the United Nations base, Yang's seat at the head of the table taken by their alien president. On one side General Xiaolian sat alone, Brabbit stood across from him flanked by an also standing Ilya, two empty seats separated him from both girls.
"Maybe they're like vampires." Bill offered, still standing up to her friend's right. "Can't come in unless they're invited."
"They're not vampires." At his words, she sat down in front of the Chinese general.
"The future we saw. Is it the war?" Xiaolian asked the Doctor. "Do we bring that future about?"
"That would seem to be the most obvious conclusion." He kept both hands in his lap. Considering how humans usually acted, this was more of a given than anything.
"No. I say, no." Both young women admired the older one as she stood up, reaching a hand to the Russian man. "Friend, I will not fight you."
"We are just soldiers in the field." His hard voice didn't deter her plan.
"Are we too afraid to disobey?" She turned to the other man.
"I'm not." Brabbit shook her hand.
"Neither am I." Ilya shook Xiaolian's hand as well after some consideration.
"This is amazing." Bill's awed whisper went unnoticed by them.
"What do you think, Mister President?" Brabbit asked their de facto leader from across the table. "Did we just give peace a chance?"
"The clock." He simply informed, standing up. Of course.
"I'm sorry?"
"Look at the clock." His steps stopped right in front of the room's sole wall clock, stuck in a warning to them.
"It's still one minute to midnight." Nardole turned around in his chair to look at it too.
"It made no difference." The Chinese general got angry, while Bill breathed out through her mouth and rubbed her eyes. "How could this make no difference?"
"Because it's not you who's going to end the world." The Doctor turned to them. "You were never the problem."
"Then who is the problem?" Bill's snappy tone earned a hard stare from Ophelia. Don't make things worse, it said.
"Something is happening somewhere else." His pacing resumed. "Somewhere in the world, in silence or in darkness, the world is ending right now. And we have to find out where."
"This is impossible." Brabbit stopped him. "We can't search a whole planet in a few minutes."
Unrest manifested in different ways throughout the room. Nardole's fingers drummed an imaginary beat on his knees and Xiaolian's tensed over a writing pad. Both men stood up and so did Bill for a moment before the weight of this whole thing pressed down and she leaned forwards against the table.
"Narrow it down." He urged their thinking as much as his own. "They landed the pyramid in the middle of military crisis. What was the point of that?" Bill's flared up what was the point? got him to turn around. "What was the effect? They told us the world was ending in a potential war zone. What did we assume was going to happen?"
"World War Three." Ophelia sounded far away. "But it didn't."
"Exactly! The trick with misdirection, don't look where the arrow is pointing, look where it's pointing away from." As it always happened when he started to get somewhere, his hands gesticulated. The left one pointed to his female companions, the right one to the door before pointing at Brabbit. "So, what's already on our radar that we should be worried about right now? Forget about war." A sweeping motion led them back to zero. "What else could end the world?"
"Bacteria." Nardole stood up in excitement, they were getting somewhere.
"I like the sound of that." The Doctor smiled.
"New strain of flu?" Xiaolian tried to help. "Plague?"
"People could be immune to that." Ophelia certainly hadn't meant to talk over the Doctor, it just happened because she knew where his mind was going. "And whatever it is will kill all life forms on Earth, not just humans. Plague discriminates." While her gaze stayed on a blank piece of paper, trying to express her thoughts coherently, everybody looked at this weirdly calm girl. "So this is not a plan, it is a mistake. Somebody, somewhere, is doing something that is about to blow up in everybody's face."
The time lord looked very proud for a moment, knowing this was a young woman finding her voice and how could he get mad?, before going around the room, using his sonic shades to hack into databases.
"What are you doing?" Ilya asked after he touched another screen, causing it to flicker for a moment and settle into a sort of search engine.
"The distraction tells us that whatever's coming is already on a watch list." His small jouner stopped at the room's main exit. "I just put all the top-secret intelligence documents in the world online in searchable format."
"What!" Brabbit most certainly didn't enjoy that.
"Sit down and google."
Without needing to repeat himself, each of them found an available computer and began to work.
‧͙⁺˚*･༓༓･*˚⁺‧͙
I have so much trouble with dialogue but whatever man.